Flight of the drones

Unmanned aerial vehicles have spread from war zones to toy shops. Now anyone can use a drone to point a camera into your private spaces and privacy laws can’t stop them. James Woodfordinvestigates. (Originally broadcast on 16 September 2012)

Transcript

Kim Powell: I just saw this thing that looked like a UFO just above the bushes there, and my first thought was that I’m hallucinating—it’s the drugs (laughs).

James Woodford: Kim Powell is a resident of Mollymook on the New South Wales South Coast, and she wasn’t hallucinating. She was lying on her bed, recovering from shoulder surgery with the help of some strong painkillers. Something outside her bedroom window caught her eye.

Kim Powell: It was almost as if it was looking at me, you know? Like, it made no attempt to go away when I went out there, so that’s why I managed to get the photos without too much trouble. It was probably, I reckon, about six foot in diameter and it was just sort of spinning around. And I had no idea what it was and then I was talking to some friends and they said, ‘Oh, maybe you should ring the police and just let them know. It sounds like somebody might be spying.’

James Woodford: In fact, what she saw was a drone.

Voiceover (archival): Now you can capture video footage and pictures as you are flying.

Voiceover (archival): Thanks to a more powerful chip and Wi-Fi N technology, we developed new ways to optimise the video transmission.

James Woodford: But it looked nothing like the aircraft we are familiar with from news footage from Afghanistan.

Today, small multi-rotor aircraft carrying cameras and other surveillance equipment are able to operate in ways that were unimaginable just a few years ago.

A new generation of super high-tech, unmanned aerial vehicles, better known as drones, are on their way and there are huge questions about whether our skies and our private lives are ready.

Australian Privacy Commissioner, Timothy Pilgrim:

Timothy Pilgrim: We’re seeing the ability for them to be used by anyone in the community who can purchase them quite easily over the internet now. And my concern is that I am not sure whether current legislation and laws around people’s privacy are going to be able to keep up with the use of this technology. So perhaps one of your neighbours buys one of these things and starts flying it around your local street; what I’m not sure about is whether we have sufficient laws to cover the activities of those individuals. For example, the Federal Privacy Act doesn’t cover the activities of individuals and so in the context of the use of drones, the act I administer wouldn’t come into play.

James Woodford: This is Background Briefing and I’m James Woodford.

(Music)

The controversy over drones is about to move from the battlefield to the backyard. Nimble machines equipped with sophisticated surveillance equipment have begun to cross the boundaries of privacy. Civil Aviation Safety Authority spokesman, Peter Gibson:

Peter Gibson: In the guidance material we’re about to publish, for example, there is a section on privacy and we refer operators to the Privacy Act and we say to them, ‘You need to be aware of the implications of your operations on the Privacy Act and the privacy of individuals.

James Woodford: CASA has no jurisdiction to enforce the public’s right to privacy. But it is worried enough about drones over homes that it has taken the unprecedented step of underlining the responsibilities of operators using these new machines. Peter Gibson:

Peter Gibson: We don’t have a direct role in this. We can’t put any requirements in place; it’s outside our legislation. But we certainly take the responsibility of awareness seriously and we’re doing that.

James Woodford: Stealthy, unmanned aircraft have been the preserve of the military and governments. But that has changed dramatically in recent years. These mass-market drones are now readily available from games stores, where they are marketed as toys.

K.C. Wong: The product allows you to have high-definition video streamed to your iPad or your iPhone or your Android pads. And that’s the sort of capability which never used to exist, and now it is there as an entertainment; you can play virtual games with it while this thing is actually flying.

James Woodford: Dr K.C. Wong is chair of the industry group Unmanned Vehicle Systems Australia, and senior lecturer in aerospace engineering at the University of Sydney.

K.C. Wong: The sensors and the processing that is in that platform is quite mind-boggling. It utilises very sophisticated algorithms to put together the sensor information from rate sensors, accelerometers, magnetometers, pressure sensors, ultrasonic sensors. And the ease of which one can fly these things, you can literally take it out of the box, plug in your battery, turn on your iPad, push a button, and it takes off. And it stays there. That’s the sort of incredible capabilities that some of these toys have now.

James Woodford: I purchased one of these quadrocopter drones off the internet. It arrived a few days later. And I’ve taken it out of its box. And I’m sitting in a lounge room in the inner-west of Sydney, I’ve put the drone onto the floor and I’ve also downloaded an application onto my Smartphone that’s going to allow me to pilot the drone. And the second I turn the piloting button on, the drone starts streaming footage live onto my Smartphone. Because it’s on the floor, right now I can see my feet. So all I need to do is press this take-off button and we’ll see what happens.

(Sound of drone operating)

So the drone turns on and lifts about a metre off the ground, and it just comes to a hover. Now, it manages its flight all by itself, so all I have to concentrate on is what I want to film. So right now it’s streaming footage live onto my Smartphone, which I can see while I’m controlling the drone. I just put my thumb onto the Smartphone and I can pan the camera around the room, I can take still photographs, I can record the footage that it’s filming, and I can move the drone anywhere around the room. But it controls the details of the flight itself, so when I’ve finished all I need to do is press the landing button.

The law is already creaking under pressure from all the new ways our privacy can be invaded: Smartphone cameras, pervasive CCTV footage, Google Street View and now the arrival of drones. Australian Privacy Commissioner, Timothy Pilgrim, cites a recent neighbour dispute that highlights the potential problems with current privacy law.

Timothy Pilgrim: There was a case in Sydney, in one of the southern suburbs, where a neighbour did put up cameras—security cameras—around, and they did focus directly into their neighbours’ property. And the neighbours whose backyard was being filmed have not yet been able to find a law which they can use to prevent that filming occurring.

James Woodford: So that’s federal privacy legislation, state privacy legislation, state surveillance legislation and common law, there was no recourse for them whatsoever?

Timothy Pilgrim: My understanding is that in New South Wales, where this case is, they have yet to find a law that they can actually use to prevent that happening. Certainly, as I said, the commonwealth privacy act does not apply to the activities of individuals within their own household, as this situation is.

James Woodford: If the law can’t deal with a fixed security camera breaching a neighbour’s privacy, it’s a whole new challenge to work out what to do about a camera that can fly. Which takes us back to Kim Powell.

(On location) I’ve just arrived in the New South Wales South Coast town of Milton Ulladulla, parked my car on the main drag. It’s one of those classic, wintry, windy blue-sky mornings that you get down in southern New South Wales at this time of year. This is a place that’s famous for its beaches, for its fishing, for its surfing, for its cafes, as a place for people to come to retire or come for a holiday. And the last thing you’d expect when you arrive in a town like this is to have your privacy invaded in such a dramatic fashion.

The owners of a local supermarket, Rob and Kim Powell are respected members of the Milton Ulladulla community. Their home is large and modern, at the back of the dunes behind Mollymook Beach. The house has lots of glass and is oriented to give a sense of being tucked into a pocket of bush. It was from their bedroom, where Kim Powell was recovering from surgery, that she saw the drone.

Kim Powell: So luckily I had my mobile phone beside the bed so I got up and I took some photos through the window here and then I actually opened the sliding door and went out onto the balcony and just took the photos that I’ve given you.

James Woodford: So how far from your bedroom window would you say it would have been?

Kim Powell: I’d say probably 30, 40 metres.

James Woodford: And was it making any noise?

Kim Powell: No. No noise, no noise at all.

James Woodford: What was it that alerted you to its presence? What was it that made you see it then?

Kim Powell: Oh, I just happened to… I was lying on the bed and just happened to look out and just there it was. Yeah, it was weird. As I said, I thought it was the drugs playing tricks with my mind (laughs). When I say that, the painkillers, sorry. Yeah.

James Woodford: And how long was it actually around and outside your bedroom window?

Kim Powell: Um, I’d say it hovered around out there for a good five minutes.

James Woodford: We’re only 50 metres from the beach here. You’re right on the beach, you’ve got a fantastic view out over the ocean. Did you have any sense of what you think that machine was actually interested in seeing?

Kim Powell: Well, I thought it might have just been perhaps real estate agents looking at properties.

James Woodford: You can see the photos that Kim Powell took that morning on the Background Briefing website. It’s easy to understand why she was baffled. At first glance it resembles a giant, flying spider. But it’s the possibility that she and the house were being watched or filmed that disturbed Kim Powell most.

Kim Powell: Yeah, it was a bit scary I guess to think that, well, if it had of had cameras on it, you know, that it has the capabilities of actually being—because you can see this house, there’s a lot of glass—that it would have had the capabilities of just looking in and seeing whatever. I mean, luckily I was fully clothed, lying on the bed, but yeah, it looks mean, or looked mean. If that did have cameras on it, I mean, is it allowed to do what it was doing? Is that just something we have to put up with? I hope not.

James Woodford: And what did the police say to you when you contacted them?

Kim Powell: Um, not a great deal really. They just asked me to explain what it looked like and they’d make some enquiries. But that was the last I heard from them.

James Woodford: While Kim Powell is able to have a laugh about the events of that morning, her husband Rob, is much less amused.

Rob Powell: Well, how do they get the darn thing off the ground, and where do they land it? Where has it taken off from? Where does it land? It’s too big to be a toy and it’s too big to be a secret; like, someone’s got to know about it. Someone must have seen it. Even though the person might be driving it or flying it, someone has got to have seen it as well.

James Woodford: Rob and Kim Powell are friends with the editor of the local paper and they thought it may help them find out who owned the machine and what it was doing. The editor of the Milton Ulladulla Times is Stuart Carless.

Stuart Carless: Kim Powell actually contacted us and sent through some photos that she’d taken on a mobile phone. And I think to start off with she primarily just wanted to know exactly what it was and thought that she’d send through the photos and just see whether we actually knew what it was, to start off with.

I forwarded the photos to a couple of friends who quickly identified it as being a drone and they sort of laughed at me because I hadn’t been able to identify it straight away. So we were able to identify it fairly quickly, but it still raises that really important issue of privacy and what it was doing there. And we’d obviously put out a call for more information in the hope to find out exactly what it was being used for and whether it was just being tested, but unfortunately we didn’t really hear much more about it after that.

James Woodford: Has there been anybody—any of the real estate agents—is there anybody that you think may have been responsible for this?

Stuart Carless: No, we certainly haven’t heard anything. From what we have been told, the one that Kim photographed was actually worth a fair bit of money, so I certainly don’t think it was just your everyday recreational use.

James Woodford: On the face of it this isn’t a story about a breach of privacy on the scale of, for example, the Defence Force Academy Smartphone sex scandal. But ethicist, Professor Rob Sparrow, from Monash University, does not think Kim Powell’s experience should be taken lightly

Rob Sparrow: I think it is a problem if that incident wasn’t taken seriously, in part simply because it is such a vivid illustration of what may happen with increasing frequency in the future. The more drones are available, the cheaper they become, the more people might decide to use them to invade our privacy or place us under surveillance. So this is clearly an early instance of that, which does need to be taken seriously.

They’re getting smaller and smaller; they’re getting quieter and quieter. And of course you don’t always look out the window. Particularly if you’re up high you don’t always look overhead wondering, ‘Who’s watching me with a drone?’ For some people, particularly celebrities or those in the public eye, in the future they might be well advised always to keep an eye out for a drone.

James Woodford: This is an industry on the brink of a massive expansion and while drones have the potential to invade our privacy, the flipside is that they also could revolutionise aspects of mining, agriculture, policing, and public safety. Drones are about to be used in surf life saving for the first time in the world. Surf Life Saving Australia has been conducting a trial. CEO, Brett Williamson:

Brett Williamson: The trial has been firstly to develop and to identify the appropriate drone or aircraft and the primary one we’re using at the moment is the Warrigal, which is about a one-metre wingspan. And it’s fixed with cameras and it’s set on a course. That live feed, live vision, is fed back to a monitor with an observer, a lifesaver observing, looking for potential dangers, marine life, and looking for people—particularly in remote areas—who may be going into the water where there is an imminent danger. So it’s just another platform for surveillance, and just like the elevated patrol towers on the beach, if the lifesaver on top of the tower sees somebody likely or nearly getting into trouble, they can deploy a lifesaver on a board or a swimmer or an IRB.

James Woodford: The drone being tested has been fitted with a fist-sized flotation buoy which can be dropped from the aircraft near a swimmer in distress. When it hits the water, the buoy inflates to the size of a basketball, providing flotation until rescuers arrive. During trials, Surf Life Saving Australia was stunned with the accuracy of the deployment of the buoy—one even hit a swimmer involved in the test on the head. And the deployable float is just the beginning.

Brett Williamson: The UAV has also been fitted with a siren, so say the UAV is flying along the coast and either sees somebody in trouble or a group potentially in trouble, or if there’s marine life, dangerous marine life, such as sharks or whatever in the area, the siren can be sounded.

James Woodford: Surf Life Saving Australia wants to deploy drones as soon as possible and hopefully by this summer. After recent fatalities at its national championships, the organisation would also like to have a drone flying above competitors at the next event, in the new year. The surf lifesaving trial has faced delays because it’s breaking new ground, and the rules for the use of drones have not kept up with the technology. Brett Williamson:

Brett Williamson: We’re ready to start almost immediately, but we do need to work very closely with the Civil Aviation Safety Authority—that’s CASA, the regulator of all the air aviation in Australia—because this is a world first, making civilian and particularly in our case safety, public safety, using the military technology, I suppose, in a public safety sense. This is a first and we’ve got to tick a lot of boxes to make sure that we’re not creating any risks; you know, we’re operating in accordance with the aviation regulations and also we’re not creating any risks. And CASA has been very cooperative. They’re probably understandably a bit nervous about the speed of the development of this technology, not just for surf life savings but in other areas. But we’re… from our perspective we’re excited, because it’s going to add to our capabilities to hopefully prevent more drownings.

James Woodford: Currently in Australia no formal qualifications are required to fly a drone providing it is being used recreationally. The rules are that commercial operators must be certified. In Australia there are just 24 CASA-certified operators and another ten in the process of applying and being assessed. Unless given special approval, all remotely piloted aircraft must be flown below 400 feet, within line of sight of the operator and in clear weather conditions, and only above unpopulated areas.

The spokesman for the Civil Aviation Safety Authority, which governs the operations of drones, is Peter Gibson:

Peter Gibson: Australia was in fact the first nation in the world to introduce a set of rules for remotely piloted aircraft. And yes of course that was about 10 or 12 years ago, so we do need to look at them in terms of are they up to date, will they keep pace with evolving technology? The guidance material will be released within weeks, possibly even days, to the aviation industry for comment. There’s about, I think, eight advisory circulars covering everything from flying training through to operations, maintenance, continuing airworthiness—all the issues that operators and controllers of remotely piloted aircraft need to understand, and maintaining the safety standards we expect. They’ll be out for comment shortly.

James Woodford: Back on the NSW south coast the search continues for the owner of the drone Kim Powell photographed outside her bedroom window.

(On location) I’ve just been into one of the local real estate agents here in Ulladulla, the First National Real Estate Agency, and I wanted to find out from them whether they knew of anybody who perhaps uses one of these unmanned aerial vehicles or whether they’re aware of another real estate agent that perhaps is trying to get some of these kind of photographs. And they said that they didn’t use unmanned aerial vehicles—they don’t have anybody on staff or that they employ that actually can get these kind of photographs—but they said if I went across the road to the LJ Hooker, that they may be able to put me in touch with a local photographer who does have one of these helicopters.

So I headed across to the LJ Hooker and they’ve put me in touch with photographer Lex Patterson. I’m about to give him a call, see if I can pop over to his place and find out what he knows about this mysterious machine that was hovering outside Kim’s bedroom window.

(To Lex Patterson) You own one of these quadrocopter unmanned aerial vehicles but at the moment you’re unable to use it, is that correct?

Lex Patterson: That’s correct, yes. It’s lying in its black bag in my garage just gathering dust at the moment, and it has been for two years.

James Woodford: So at the time that you bought it were you aware of what the rules actually were regarding its use?

Lex Patterson: No, not at all. I thought it was I got the machine, I can use it and do as I please with it, but not the case.

James Woodford: And how did you find out what the rules actually are?

Lex Patterson: ‘Open to View’ it’s a franchise, and we have a forum and one of the other blokes came up with this knowledge and let me know about it. So that’s the only reason I know that it is now illegal.

James Woodford: Where did your machine come from and how much did it cost?

Lex Patterson: It cost me $14,000. I imported it from Canada and it’s taken three or four months to learn how to fly it properly.

James Woodford: What is its capacity if it was able to be used?

Lex Patterson: Um, they say it has a range of 500 metres. At that distance you wouldn’t be able to see the thing; it’s not that big. It has four rotors—it has got a central battery pack and four rotors extending from that. The camera suspends below the battery pack. I’ve had it up to about 50 metres in height. It does get blown around quite a lot wind-wise, so it takes quite a bit of skill to keep it where you want it. The camera on board, it’s a 12 megapixel camera; it can do movies or stills. The charge lasts for about 15 minutes with the camera on board.

James Woodford: How big is the machine?

Lex Patterson: It is about 600 millimetres in diameter.

James Woodford: What would you like to be able to do with it?

Lex Patterson: Well, it was bought specifically for real estate photography, showing elevated views of homes, showing the home in relation to the golf course or the ocean or whatever. It is a fairly lucrative way of making money, elevated photography. So at the moment I’m using an extendable aerial pole, which goes up 20 metres, but ideally I’d like to use my helicopter. It’s a lot easier.

James Woodford: Why not just use aerial photography or satellite photography? What special pictures can you actually get using this unmanned aerial vehicle?

Lex Patterson: Using a high quality camera at, say, 20 metres you get a much better quality picture, rather than using what’s available on Google. It can be blown up for usage on signboards, large newspaper spreads, so it’s just high resolution photos that can be achieved, rather than using what’s available on Google.

James Woodford: What do you think of the rules that prevent you from using this?

Lex Patterson: I can understand the rules being in place. In a built-up area there is a potential for danger should the thing get out of control, or blow away, that I can appreciate. From my point of view, the aviation authorities should realise that, you know, because of the amount of money spent on the machine, it’s not something that would be used willy-nilly. It would be used sparingly and for what it was made for.

James Woodford: Now, the incident that happened back in April, here on Mollymook Beach, what did you think when you first heard that story?

Lex Patterson: I read about it in the newspaper and I thought it was a bit of an exaggeration in that it was hovering stationary in one place for… I can’t remember the specified amount of time. But it would take somebody with great skill to keep that machine in one place for that amount of time.

James Woodford: The other thing that was said about it was that it was six feet in diameter.

Lex Patterson: No, no. They’ve got their metric and their imperial measurements mixed up. It couldn’t have been more than 600 mm.

James Woodford: Were you the pilot of that unmanned aerial vehicle?

Lex Patterson: Definitely not. I’ve only ever flown it down at Mollymook oval, down at the rugby field. That’s the only place I’ve ever flown my machine.

James Woodford: So do you have any theories about who it may have been flying that machine? Was there somebody else that you know who may have been using it?

Lex Patterson: There’s not anybody that I know of. It’s a size of machine that could fit in the boot of a small car, so it may not even necessarily be anybody in the area. It could be somebody that was down on holiday or whatever.

James Woodford: How would you describe it in relation to the machine that you’ve got?

Lex Patterson: It is basically the same thing. It wasn’t quite the model that I have. I can show you my machine and if you’ve got photos you could possibly pick up differences.

James Woodford: Look, I think that would be good. Let’s go and have a look at your machine.

(Sound of machine being unpacked)

James Woodford: So when I first met Lex, I thought that maybe we might have come close to at least having a chance of solving the mystery. But we’ve got Lex’s machine here in front of us and it’s got four rotors, it’s got quite a different landing structure. The one that Kim saw, it’s got at least eight rotors—it looks like a much, much bigger machine—and its landing apparatus is curved. So it actually does look like a very different machine, so the mystery deepens.

(Music)

One of the main concerns for the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Industry is that legitimate operators could be tarred by the behaviour of a rogue pilot. For this reason the industry is pushing for the adoption of a code of conduct which specifically aims to protect privacy.

However, Background Briefing has been told that many businesses and individuals are either not aware of the rules or decide to flout them. For them, CASA spokesman, Peter Gibson, has a warning:

Peter Gibson: Our message is very clear to them. We will—if we get information about your operations from other people or from identifying advertisements on the internet, for example, we will investigate. We treat breaches of the regulations in the remotely piloted sector no differently than we treat breaches of the regulations in the manned sector of aviation. We have investigators; we have a team of investigators. If we get information which is credible and leads us to believe people are operating outside the rules we can task investigations, gather evidence, and issue infringement notices and/or take court action if that’s appropriate.

So people should be very aware if they’re operating commercially or for aerial work purposes and they don’t have an operator’s certificate from the Civil Aviation Safety Authority, they run a real risk of being caught and action being taken against them.

James Woodford: Those trying to bring drones into the mainstream of the aviation industry, like aerospace engineer, Dr K.C. Wong, acknowledge the need for a public discussion.

K.C. Wong: Yes, this technology is there. And there’s a lot of good, but we also need to discuss the ethics, the responsibilities of utilising this technology, because the last thing we need is people misusing it and therefore destroying its potential for the good that it can do. And in a sense, should we then stop it right now? I say, let’s proceed responsibly; let’s proceed gradually. While I’m not suggesting that we should have these things freely available and freely operating right now, that’s why we work closely with CASA in looking at how we can ensure responsible use of these platforms.

James Woodford: Like K.C. Wong, Professor Rob Sparrow says ethical questions are critical, even when all the official boxes have been ticked.

Rob Sparrow: One of the mistakes that people make when they think about privacy [is] to think loss of privacy only matters if you have something to hide. But of course when privacy disappears, our behaviour changes, and it changes in ways that involve the loss of valuable things, the loss of a space for relaxation and intimacy. And that loss can occur, that absence of privacy can occur not simply when we’re on camera, but whenever we worry that we’re on camera. So drones are going to make that much, much worse.

James Woodford: In the future, the beach may be one such place. Beaches are sacred places of relaxation for many Australians. Surf Life Saving Australia’s drone trial could ultimately result in even the most remote and secluded beaches being regularly patrolled. Brett Williamson says he doesn’t think even those who seek out the privacy of a wild beach should be concerned about drones flying overhead.

Brett Williamson: We do already throughout various parts of Australia incorporate camera surveillance—usually on the top of high-rise or on the top of poles—and that’s all fed into a central command centre where that’s monitored. We do have very strict protocols. Those protocols were originally developed with a civil libertarian group and those protocols insist that the observers hold all their necessary approvals and checks, whether they be for child… working with children, or police checks—all those things. That’s the people who view the vision.

And also we have very strict protocols in place about the release of any vision and usually we don’t release any vision for any purpose unless requested by the police. So, you know, we have very, very strict protocols. At the end of the day, this is about public safety; it’s not about intruding on anybody’s privacy. And fortunately with our experience of having the fixed cameras network we haven’t had one problem or one complaint or one operator that hasn’t operated in strict accordance with those protocols that we have in place.

James Woodford: And how do you make sure that whoever is monitoring or flying these unmanned aerial vehicles doesn’t do anything inappropriate, such as spy on a beachgoer?

Brett Williamson: Again, we have very strict protocols. There’s always two people at least. There’s one observer on the camera and then there’s the pilot taking directions from the observer, saying, ‘Look, can you move a little bit south? I think I saw something.’ But we haven’t had any problems at all in the ten years since we’ve been operating cameras. It would be a very unusual case of collusion for that to occur.

James Woodford: Is there any concern that it could have an impact of changing people’s behaviour at the beach?

Brett Williamson: I really don’t think so. I mean, I’d like to think that that gives an added level of comfort. And the ability for us to locate missing children—not necessarily just in the water—but to use that vision to enhance our rescue capability and speed of response to remote areas to save people’s lives but also to find lost children or bushwalkers in remote areas, national parks and adjoining beaches, so it’s actually saving lives. So, I mean one of the beaches we’ve had cameras at is a nudist beach—I’d better not name it because it may be an illegal one—but the group that sort of lead or look after that area actually came to Surf Life Saving, ‘Hey, look, we’re a bit worried, we’re very remote, what can we do?’ So we put in an emergency alarm system and some vision.

James Woodford: Brett Williamson, CEO of Surf Lifesaving Australia.

Mollymook is not a remote beach—it’s surrounded by houses, including the home of Kim Powell, who wants to know who flew the drone she photographed outside her bedroom window. The answer may never be known, but one of the companies that supplies these multi-rotor drones is Aerobot, an operation based in Byron Bay. One of the company directors, Felicity Durham, initially agreed to an interview but then changed her mind. Background Briefing sent Kim Powell’s pictures through to Felicity Durham, who identified it as a Droidworx Octocopter, a brand that her company sold until earlier this year.

In an email, Felicity Durham wrote:

(Via reader) I would assume the purpose of the flight was to practice flying without putting their commercial camera at risk; for example, a hard landing.

Or even perhaps for longer practice flight times due to a smaller payload.

There are probably about 50 of the DroidWorx Octocopters in circulation.

I have a few customers in New South Wales, so we might know whose it was. We aren’t at any liberty to disclose private details though. Sorry.

In relation to Kim Powell’s complaint, the New South Wales Police told Background Briefing, ‘No action was taken as the device appears to have been run remotely so therefore unable to be identified.’ They referred us to CASA.

While it doesn’t help Kim Powell, the main reason that her case has fallen through the cracks is because having your privacy invaded by a drone is such a new crime that a country police station probably had no idea what to do with it. Professor Wong says that will change as drones become more common.

K.C. Wong: Obviously that person who is operating that octocopter is operating illegally. CASA is working on enforcing their regulations. They’re nowhere near where they could be in policing these illegal activities, but again, if they become more prevalent then you would say our police, our law enforcement agencies, would be in a better situation to be able to do something about it. And the danger is there, absolutely.

James Woodford: The Civil Aviation Safety Authority is aware of Kim Powell’s case but says it has not been investigated because CASA did not receive a formal complaint. Peter Gibson:

Peter Gibson: Well, of course, just like the police, the problem we’ve got is of course if you can’t identify who is actually operating the aircraft, then of course it’s very hard to take these matters any further. You know, unless someone happens to have got some vision of it, for example…

James Woodford: They did have vision and in fact it does seem to be a commercial class of one of these unmanned aerial vehicles.

Peter Gibson: Well, if someone brings that information to us, then we’ll certainly look at it.

James Woodford: But in a case like this where Kim Powell actually took photographs to the police and told them the details, and it actually does seem to be quite a serious breach, isn’t that a failure then of communication between the police and yourselves, because clearly this is something that at least should have been investigated?

Peter Gibson: Well, I mean I think the issue is one of education, isn’t it, and awareness that the broader community, now that there are more of these things out there, needs to be aware that if they are being used unsafely that they should contact the Civil Aviation Safety Authority. We have a 1800 number on our website for people to report safety occurrences anywhere—not just remotely piloted aircraft but any type of aircraft operation—and we treat all those very seriously.

James Woodford: But as the law stands now, if that drone is being piloted by an individual there may be no legal way of stopping it. Privacy Commissioner Timothy Pilgrim says that the current legal uncertainty cannot be ignored.

Timothy Pilgrim: I think what is necessary would be for governments at all levels to have a look at those existing laws to see whether they do deal with this rapidly changing technology and are able to keep up with it and meet the needs and the expectations of the community in this area. For example, last year the federal government released an issues paper on a statutory course of action, that is, a right to sue for privacy, so that is one potential example in the absence of other laws that if that was enacted it could provide or it may provide a remedy in those sort of circumstances. But I would suggest that it’s time for all levels of government to have a look at whether the applicable laws can do the job.

James Woodford: Do you think that this technology is actually different enough that it warrants everybody acting together to do something about it?

Timothy Pilgrim: With the Commonwealth Privacy Act what we have is a set of high-level principles which are designed specifically to apply across different technologies. So there are mechanisms already in the law to cover some areas. So I think that the types of laws are there; the issue for me is whether we have sufficient of them at different levels of government to actually do the job. Ultimately it may be something for government to look at about whether or not this type of technology, because of its intrusive nature, does need to have specific regulation.

James Woodford: All of the experts Background Briefing spoke to advised anyone who sees a drone operating in a way that makes them uncomfortable to contact police. Australian Privacy Commissioner, Timothy Pilgrim:

Timothy Pilgrim: I would just say to anyone to think about them being in a similar situation—opening up their curtains one morning when they’re waking up, getting ready to go to work—would they like to have the possibility of a machine with a camera live streaming information back to someone they don’t know about what was going on in their homes? I think in those situations we’d all take that issue seriously.

James Woodford: And that is exactly why Kim Powell followed her instincts and treated the incident as one she thought authorities should follow up.

Kim Powell: Like, I didn’t know that it was illegal. I’m sure maybe it was all too hard for the police to look into. I mean, where do they look? I don’t know. And the fact that no one came forward makes me think, well, they knew what they were doing was illegal too, so that’s why no one’s owned up to it. I was the only one, the only one that saw it. It’s amazing, but I was! (Laughs) Well, the only one that’s come forward to say they’ve seen it, anyway. Well, all I can say is thank God I got the photos. Otherwise I would have thought I was going mad too!

James Woodford: Background Briefing’s co-ordinating producer is Linda McGinness. Research by Anna Whitfeld, technical production by Mark Don. The executive producer is Chris Bullock and I’m James Woodford.